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Festival Pass for Thursday, July 11

What’s summer without a road trip or two? I’m planning a couple of short trips in the coming weeks and I’m brainstorming playlists and album selections.

On our family road trips, there was always one staple (first on cassette, then CD, now digital): Billy Joel’s “Greatest Hits Volume 1 and Volume 2.” It’s always in my rotation, but I also try to get a mix of artists from wherever I’m going as well as some staples from the vintage Warped Tours of the mid-late ’90s and early ’00s. (IMO, third wave ska is excellent for California driving, particularly Reel Big Fish’s “Turn the Radio Off” and Save Ferris’ “It Means Everything.”)

What are your go-to road trip albums and songs? Email me at vfranko@scng.com with your picks and I’ll put together a playlist with your favorites and mine on Spotify and share it here in the coming weeks.

And if you’re not hitting the road anytime soon, there’s some music happening this weekend and new festivals on the way. Read on.

Dirty Heads will perform at the all-new On the Water Festival at Huntington State Beach in October. (File photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

In this file photo, Snoop Dogg performs at Musink inside The Hangar at the Orange County Fair and Event Center. An event description for the Nood Beach festival, which will happen later this year in Huntington Beach, says the rapper will perform there. (File photo by Kevin Warn, contributing photographer for Orange County Register/Southern California News Group)

Snoop and live noods!

Snoop Dogg will perform, competitive eaters will chow down and more than 20 Southern California noodle vendors will set up shop in Huntington Beach for the Nood Beach festival. Get the details.

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Slayer will perform its last-ever U.S. show at The Forum in Inglewood in November. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

SLAYERRRR!!! 🤘

Slayer’s final U.S. tour date ever will be at the Forum. While it’s not technically a festival, the lineup reads like it could be a revival of the old Mayhem Fest. Tickets go on sale Friday.

And now for a little something extra…Here are three must-reads on entertainment, culture and events we think you might like.

Vanessa Franko is the Digital Director of Entertainment for the Southern California News Group. The lure of palm trees and covering pop culture brought her to The Press-Enterprise in Riverside in 2006. Vanessa has reported on everything from the Palm Springs International Film Festival to the MLB All-Star Game as a reporter, photographer, videographer and on-camera personality. She's won awards for her coverage of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and for crime reporting in her home state of Maryland. Vanessa studied multimedia storytelling as a Knight Digital Media Center fellow in Dec. 2011 and has taught college courses in digital journalism. She's seen shows at every major concert venue in Southern California, but most special was when Paul McCartney played the high-desert roadhouse Pappy & Harriet's in Pioneertown for a couple hundred fans in Oct. 2016. Her album collection numbers in the thousands (including a couple hundred on vinyl) and when she isn't hunting for records, she and her husband like to check out the best in Southern California craft beer and watch sports. She also had a cameo in the 1992 Atlanta Braves highlight film, Lightning Strikes Twice!

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